A different perspective on global and local issues not the headline news

Trump’s Nasty and Insulting Tweets

Just like the Fakies award, there should be the Nasties awards. This is the targets (people, places and things) which Trump has insulted on Twitter since becoming elected President.

The New York Times went through all his tweets since being elected. Trump’s #1 target is: Mainstream media. I came to this conclusion by measuring the column length, which came to roughly 2 full columns for Mainstream Media. This group is, according to his tweets, “The enemy of the American people.” Of course, this comes from the #1 Liar of the Year in 2016 and 2017, according to Politifact.com.

Here’s a quick sampling of the mainstream media tweets: “Fake reporting, dishonest, FAKE NEWS, very corrupt, talks about anything negative or that can be turned into the negative.” While dishonest and corrupt are widely used, Trump really likes to the word “fake” but on occasion uses “phony” and “fabricated.” There is fake news, off course, by also “fake media” and “phony stories” as in “phony Russian stories.”

As one would expect, the most numerous insulting tweets at the news media, as I measured by column length, are aimed at the New York Times, Washingon Post, CNN and NBC. Everything has an adjective associated with it, and in this case, it is the “failing New York Times” which I’ve already reported is doing just fine. MSNBC is “unwatchable” – this is an actual word (highest viewership for cable network, with 1.5 million viewers outranking Fox Network). ABC news was attacked as “Fiction writers, Fake News, Fake News, Fake News, totally wrong in General E, totally biased, fake news, such dishonesty!” And amazingly, ABC has the fewest insulting tweets.

Everyone has a name. Joe Scarborough of the Morning Joe program, was called “Psycho Joe” by Trump. Scarborough would seem to be a natural supporter of Trump as he was an elected Republican congressman for 6 years from Florida. Co-host Mika Brzezinski is “dumb as a rock, was bleeding badly from a face-lift, low I.Q., crazy.” Really nasty stuff. I note that she has been a reporter for 28 years, a graduate of Georgetown University and author of 3 books.

There are a lot of obvious targets, the Democrats, Obama, and Hillary Clinton. Democrats are the “obstructionist Dems.” It is always “Crooked Hillary.” For Obama, he has a lot of insulting tweets, including “How low has President Obama gone to tap my phone during the very sacred election process. A NEW LOW” which we know was a completely false accusation. Trump refers to Obama as “Weak! Terrible! Bad (or sick) guy.” Obama questioned Trump’s temperament to be President. He had a point.

What might surprise people, are how many times he’s insulted Republicans and those in high positions in his cabinet. “Sloppy Steve” refers to his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who was Trump’s key policy adviser reporting directly to Trump. On Bannon, Trump tweeted, “Sloppy Steve cried when he got fired, begged for his job. Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone, Sloppy Steve leaker.” Trump really boiled over after Michael Wolfe’s book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House was published. “Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency,” Mr. Trump said. “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”

Other Republicans subject to insulting tweets were Bob Corker, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski (Rep Senator from Alaska) and John McCain. Within the Executive Branch, insultees include AG Jeff Sessions, Rob Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe, Deputy Director of the FBI. He has really nasty tweets on fired FBI Director James Comey.

A very recent tweet target is Michael Wolff who wrote a critical book on the time period immediately following the election to now, and is now #1 on Amazon’s best seller list, likely helped by Trump’s tweet, “mentally deranged author, knowingly writes false information.”